The Green Bay Packers Might Be The Team to Beat: If They Don't Beat Themselves

Aaron Rodgers is good. Really Good. Look at his stats the past two years and there is no arguing that he can throw the ball and make good decisions.

The only problem? He spends a lot of time on his back. His TD pass to INT ratio has been very solid since taking over at quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, but with how often he is getting hit you have to also add in his fumbles, and there have been too many of them, 19 over the past two seasons to be exact (Compared to 20 INTs over the same period).

You add the fumbles and the INTs together (For this we will use just fumbles lost) and that is 30 turnovers in the past two seasons. That still isn't a horrible number, but given that the number of times sacked, fumbles, and fumbles lost increased last year from the previous, and considering the Packers didn't do much to bolster their offensive line, it could spell doom for the Packers.

Given his completion percentage over the last two years of 64.16% you have to think that it will decrease this year if he keeps getting hit so much. And if your completion percent goes down your interceptions go up. The simple math goes like this: QB gets hit = accuracy goes down = more interceptions and less touchdowns = less games won.

Just ask Ben Roethlisberger. In 4 seasons he has been sacked 46 or more times. Twice he has completed less than 60% of his passes. He has also thrown more interceptions in those four years than in his two seasons where he wasn't constantly laid out. But there is also a big difference between Big Ben and Aaron, and that's 3 inches and almost 20 pounds.

If that isn't enough evidence for you, look at all the players who were sacked more than 40 times last year. The only one who didn't hit double digit interceptions was Rodgers. One quarterback with more than 40 sacks also had a 1-1 TD to INT ratio, while another had a 3-2 ratio and another had 4-3 ratio. That just won't cut it for a team who wants to make a deep run in the playoffs.

Now let's look at the fumbles for those same QBs with over 40 sacks. The only one with less than 10 was Roethlisberger. Everyone one of them lost at least three of those fumbles, with one losing eight. That is the wrong kind of offensive production.

On the bright side, Rodgers didn't get sacked this preseason, so that is a good sign, right? Not exactly as he wasn't sacked last preseason either.

The Packers are probably the team to beat in the NFC, just as long as they don't beat themselves up first.